Two colleagues of Wayne Couzens, the London police officer convicted of raping and murdering Sarah Everard, have themselves been found guilty of "sharing offensive messages" over group chats the men shared. A fourth officer in the chat, William Neville, 34 was acquitted.
The "grossly racist, sexist, misogynistic" messages posted by Jonathon Cobban, 35, and Joel Borders, 45, were found on Couzens' phone history.
Judge Sarah Turnock described some of the comments as "abhorrent". Judge Turnock said: "I can honestly say that I consider it to be sickening to think of a police officer joking about using firearms in this way." On April 25 2019, Borders joked about raping a female colleague using language which the judge said was "misogynistic and aggressive in its nature".
It's disconcerting that the things they wrote in a group chat are crimes, but not as disconcerting as the fact this is seemingly the only legal device available to trigger disciplinary proceedings against these blatantly dangerous cops—two of which are still on the force.
In an exchange on April 5 that year, Borders wrote: "I can't wait to get on guns so I can shoot some c*** in the face!"
Cobban responded: "Me too. I want to taser a cat and a dog to see which reacts better. I think the cat will get more pissed off and the dog will shit. I wanna test this theory. Same with children. Zap zap you little f******."
Borders replied suggesting adding "downys", a term the prosecution said referred to people with Down's syndrome, to the list.
And check this out, about the officer who was acquitted:
The messages included one in which Neville told others in the group of a recent shift when he had pinned down a 15-year-old girl, referring to it as a "struggle snuggle", a remark that prosecutors allege to be the acting out of a rape fantasy.
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But Judge Turnock found the term referred to a technique learnt during police training, and said the message did not in itself imply the action had been sexually motivated.
Imagine the complete ignorance of the world around her—the world of these police officers—which this judge must labor under to think that "struggle snuggle" was a legitimate police training term even in the context of the violent fantasies they were sharing. The KC that convinced her of this deserves a statue in Britain's extraordinarily well-populated Hall of Rapists.
